Thursday, September 18, 2014

This is not at all alarming: MRAP vehicles for -school-districts-.

San Diego Unified School District Police Chief Ruben Littlejohn told NPR the district's mine-resistant vehicle will be used exclusively as a rescue vehicle, and that officials planned to fill it with teddy bears and trauma kits.

It's not a militarization of public schools, he said.

"There will be medical supplies in the vehicle. There will be teddy bears in the vehicle," he said. "There will be trauma kits in the vehicle in the event any student is injured, and our officers are trained to give first aid and CPR."

Littlejohn told KPBS the vehicle, which arrived in April, was stocked with donated medical supplies and students in the district's auto collision refinishing program repainted it, but some readers clearly disapproved of the idea regardless.

"They can call it a 'love buggy,' a 'student patrol limo,' or a 'campus police fun bus' and then paint it pretty colors, but that doesn't change the fact it's a piece of military equipment that is unnecessary and sends the message that local officials are at war with students," according to one commenter on the KPBS site.

Other school districts in California, Texas, California, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, and Georgia have also received military-grade weapons or supplies, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with every state by MuckRock.com, a government transparency website. Only about half of the states have so far replied to the public information requests, the Huffington Post reports.

And at some school districts, like suburban Topeka's Auburn Washburn Schools, local officials won't discuss with the public what kind of equipment they've received.

Now maybe its just me, but isn't the very fact that there even exists something called the "San Diego Unified School District Police" alarming? I mean, this is a special police force, separate from the city of San Diego police, whose job is just being at the schools. That's their whole thing, hanging around the schools.

And now, these donut munchers have been given mine resistant armored vehicles. Also grenade launchers and full-auto M-16 rifles. Which for sure they've been trained on, uh huh. Yep, Office Cupcake who normally walks the beat at the local high school has absolutely been checked out on all the starting procedures, sealed air conditioning, lights, the turret controls (yes, it has a turret) and all that great stuff. And the SDUSDP couldn't possibly fit all that super life saving equipment and those teddy bears into a normal van that gets more than eight miles per gallon, right? And they totally need full-auto 5.56mm rifles. With grenade launchers. Because they get in firefights with baddies at the school all the time, right?

Yeah.

I'd make sure your kid doesn't have any outstanding library fines, America. Could end up with a MRAP in your driveway pointing a big ol' grenade launcher at your front door.